Hiera dakrya, Ecclesiae anglicanae suspiria, The tears, sighs, complaints, and prayers of the Church of England setting forth her former constitution, compared with her present condition : also the visible causes and probable cures of her distempers : in IV books / by John Gauden ...

CHAP. XXV.

YEt after all this sharp and sad experience, which hath rendred the profession of Ministers on all hands con∣temptible, their ordination disputable, their enjoy∣ments miserable, their necessities irreparable, their dependences poor, plebeian, & almost sordid, by their mutuall and unhappy divisions; yet still many, who glory to be cal∣led Ministers, (of whatever odde ordination or new edition they are) do fancy it a great part of their piety, to be pertinacious in those new opinions, wayes and factions, which they have adopted; yea much of their sanctity is made to consist in their scorning all antiquity, and of all Reformation heretofore in the Church of England. If they can find nothing else to quarrel at in the old Clergie of England (whose doctrine was found, whose ordination most Catholick, valid and un∣questionable by Bishops, whose learning and lives were most com∣mendable) yet they must find fault with their very clothes; and ra∣ther than not differ, they must disguise themselves from the gravity of Gowns and Cassocks, of black caps and black clothes, to military clokes, to Scotch jumps, to white caps, and all mechanick colours: in which posture being as Preachers once got into a Pulpit, then both they and the silly people fancy they see great Reformations of Reli∣gion, more looking at the gay and strange colours of a foolish bird, than minding how it speaks: especially if these new Ministers do gratifie the plebs of the Laity and the plebs of the Clergie with any influence or stroke in their ordination, and consecration to the office of the Ministry; if they have highly cried up popular rights and li∣berties in making and marring, in electing and rejecting, in ordaining and deposing their Pastors; if they have gently condescended to such popular transports and real novellizings in England, as are contrary to all practises of ancient and best Churches; O what an high moun∣tain do these new Masters and their new Disciples fancy they are ascended! to what a glorious transfiguration do they imagine them∣selves to be changed! what a new heaven and new earth do some of them, either more silly, or more subtill than others, glory they have created, in their godly corporations, their rare associations, and blest ordinations! how strange, novell and disorderly soever they are, as to all ancient customes of this and all Churches.

Nor do they think it worth considering, how much they deviate from all Antiquity; how much they desert, yea & reproch the wisdom of this Church and all estates in this Nation, ever since it was either Christian or Reformed; how much they go beyond the duty they owed to the civil peace of this Nation, as also that modesty, humi∣lity, ingenuity, reverence and subjection, which by the lawes of God and man, by all sanctions, civil and Ecclesiasticall, they owed to the

Governours and guides, Pastors and Preachers, the peace and well∣fare of this Church of England; besides that prudence and policy which they ought to maintain, in order to the honour and respect, which is indeed due to their calling and authority, when it is truly ministeriall and authentick.

What sober and impartial man doth not see, how the despites, arro∣gancies and insolencies, first expressed in tumultuary heats and furies, against all Bishops whatsoever (though never so learned, grave, god∣ly and industrious men, fit to govern, and apt to teach the Church of Christ,) are still maintained and repeated daily; yea raked up and increased by the popular oratory of some novel Ministers, so far as to raise eternall prejudices and antipathies, even against all those Presbyters which were, or are, of Episcopall ordination? And the better to justifie these Novelties and Schisms in the Church of England, (which some were so eager and easie to begin, so loth and unwilling to retract) they still entertain their nauseous, credulous and itching Disciples, with all those odious, stale and envious Crambes, which are most welcome to vulgar ears and sacrilegious aims: as how unfit it was for the Ministers of Jesus Christ, who was the great pattern of piety and poverty, to have great revenues, state∣ly Palaces, and noble Lordships, which more godly men do want; for Preachers to have any titles of honour and respect, as Lords, to have any part of civil power, or indeed of Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction.

All which honest employments and enjoyments, I conceive, (un∣der favour) the excellent Bishops, and other deserving Clergie-men in England, were as worthy to enjoy, and as able to use, with ho∣nour, conscience and charity, as any of those men, either military or civil, who were most zealous to deprive, to debase, and to destroy the Hierarchy, or just honour of the Ecclesiastick state in England. Nor do I think it was any way displeasing to God, or in the least kind unbecoming the name of Christ, for Bishops and other Ministers of his Church to have such ample estates and honourable preferments for their double honour, in so plentifull a land as England was: this I am sure, it was far less beseeming any good Christian to repine at them, and unjustly to deprive them of them.

If this envious vein of popular oratory grow at length fulsome, vile and ridiculous (as it is now to all sober and judicious auditors;) then the Anti-episcopall parties of Ministers devoutly rip up, and sadly repeat whatever they have heard, or others invented, of any Bishops faults, or the Episcopall Clergies past infirmities: whate∣ver they can they rake up, though long ago buried as it ought to be, in the charitable forgetfulness of all good men, who either consider their own frailties, or remember how many holy Bishops were Mar∣tyrs and Confessors in all ages of persecution; how learned, how diligent, how commendable, how admirable, how useful they were to this Church, for their preaching, writing and living, in times of persecution as well as peace, even here in England. All good Bi∣shops and other Clergie (as I have formerly expressed) confess

themselves, as men, to be subject to infirmities and temptations; the best Bishops and Ministers least deny this truth, being every day most vigilant to resist the one, and amend the other. These allega∣tions then (like the Devils quoting of Scripture) though they may have some squint-ey'd truth in them, yet they are spitefully, parti∣ally, and most impertinently alledged against all Bishops, especially by those fierce Presbyterians, or other implacable Preachers, who have now liberally taught the English world, that however the ri∣ches, pomp and honours of Presbyterian or Independent, or other Preachers, are (much against their wills) far less than those which God and man, reason and Religion, order and polity, devotion and gratitude, Law and Gospel, allowed to Bishops and Presbyters heretofore (that the eminency of their office and place in the Church might have something of honourable splendour and hospi∣table magnificence, proportionable to its venerable authority and great antiquity;) yet men are not so blinded by that popular dust, stirred up against the faults and names of Bishops, as not to see that the pride, covetousness and imperiousness of the most furious and factious Anti-episcopall Ministers, come not one jot behind any of those Bishops, whom they look upon and represent with the most malignant aspect. O how magisteriall are many new masters in their opinions! how authoritative in their decisions! how supercilious in their conversations! how severe in their censures! how inexo∣rable in their passions! how implacable in their wrath! how infle∣xible in their factions! how irrevocable in their transports, though never so rash, heady, plebeian and unsuccessfull! by which they (at once) forsook their duties to others, and their own mercies. And this many of them did to please others or themselves, contrary to their former judgements, their sworn and avowed subjection to Bishops for many years, when they paid that respect to those Fathers and Gover∣nours of this Church, which the laws of God and man required, long before either Presbytery was hatched, or Independency gendered in England.

The sharp severities and early rigours of both which parties and their Consectaries, grew quickly both remarkable and intolerable to sober Christians: for as they were bred and born (like Pallas) arm∣ed, full of anger, revenge and ambitious fierceness; so they have acted, even in their infancy and minority, far beyond what regular, sober, and true Episcopacy ever did in its greatest age and procerity here in England; yea its greatest passion and transports did not ex∣ceed the aims of these new masters, both Ecclesiastical & civil, which was either to rule all, or to ruine all. Bishops commonly justified their reall or seeming severities by those lawes, either civil or Ec∣clesiasticall, which were in force against all such as did not conform to them. Hence were occasioned (much, I am confident, to the grief, and against the desire of the most grave and godly Bishops) sometimes those so oft declaimed against, and aggravated persecuti∣ons of some unconformable, yet otherwayes godly Ministers, by si∣lencings,

suspensions, deprivations, &c. which sometimes were but just and necessary exercises of Discipline (as I conceive) if men will maintain any order and government in any Church or State; some∣times, it may be, some Bishops pressed too much upon the strictness and rigour of law, aggravated by their private passions, beyond what might with charity and moderation safely have been indulged to some able and peaceable Ministers, though in some things dissenters, yet, as to the main, good and usefull to the Church.

Yet all these old Almanacks, these stale and posthumous calcula∣tions of Episcopall severities, did not upon true account, no not in one hundred years, equal the number and measure of those pressures and miseries, which have been acted or designed in one fifteen years, by such as now profess Presbyterian and Independent principles, against all Bishops, and all those Ministers which are of the Episcopal per∣swasion. I think it may, without any stroke of Rhetorick or Hyper∣bole, be said with sober truth, that the little finger of Presbytery and Independency, with the warts and wens of other factions growing up∣on them, hath been heavier upon the Episcopal, which was the one∣ly legal Clergie of England of late years, than the loins of any sober and godly Bishops ever were for any one century, yea, and equal to the burdens of the most passionate and immoderate Bishops whatso∣ever in any age, who commonly were most imperious when the Church had most peace and civil prosperity; but the Presbyterian thunder and Independent lightning, urged most upon all Bishops, and all Episcopall Ministers, then when they were most scared, pillaged and harrased by a civil war, when most tossed by those sad storms, and almost overwhelmed by the impressions of those sad dissentions. Then, then was it that Bishops and other Episcopall Ministers, (whose consciences were guided in their judgements by the wisdome of this Church and Nation, together with all other Christian Churches in all ages) having lost their clokes in the wars, must be deprived of their coats also; chiefly for their innocent opinion, and honest adherency to Catholick Episcopacy: then was it, that where Episcopacy had at any time, and that by special command from their Governours, si∣lenced or sequestred refractory or turbulent Ministers, by tens or hundreds, possibly Presbytery and Independency inflicted either those mulcts, or terrours at least, upon thousands of Ministers dissenting from them, not as to the Religion established, or Laws in force in England, but meerly as to their private opinions and principles about Church-government. Hence so many learned, pious and pain∣ful Preachers, since the civil digladiations ceased, had been condem∣ned to chains of everlasting darkness, to remediless distresses, both they and their families, if there had not been some more generous mercy and connivence shewed, than those mens spirits intended, or can well bear. Through which miseries and terrours, many Mini∣sters gray hairs have been brought down with sorrow to their graves.

After all which dreadful severities, either intended or executed,

against the Episcopall Clergie, yet, as far as I can see, the conditi∣on of any sort of Ministers now in England is not any whit better, as to the generality, nor comparable to what the Clergie enjoyed in former times, who in my judgement might well have born the yoke of Episcopacy, with as little disparagement, and with as much ease and honour, every way, as they have for some years done the examination and inspection, the rebukes and frowns, the terrours and jurisdictions of Major Generals, or Countrey Committees, not onely in secular and military, but even in religious respects: among which few, I believe, were to be found equal, or exceeding such Bishops and other grave Divines as England afforded, both able Preachers and excellent Governours; much more fitted in all respects (except their swords) to be the superintendents of Ministers, being of the same education, office and calling, than most of those men can be, who are (generally) so much (Heteroclites) different from learned men, both in their breeding, learning, studies and course of living, that even from hence they have sometimes secret Antipathies even against all Ministers or Clergy-men, as persons of another geni∣us, of more refined minds, and, if men were impartially weighed, of greater worth and merits.

As then I cannot find that Ministers of any new name, form, title and extractions whatsoever, have much mended their condi∣tion, by that great alteration they have made or sought in this Church and State; so, I am sure, their mutual enmities and divisions do very much heighten their common afflictions, and add exceeding∣ly to that general darkness and diminution, in all respects, civil and sacred, which is come or coming upon them, as upon wicked men, in the strict account of Gods justice; or as weak men, in the vulgar process of mans severity.

Indeed the worst of Ministers miseries they generally owe to themselves, who in piety and prudence, above all men, should by uni∣ted counsels and cares avoid them; because it is sport to the most and worst of men, to see those men together by the ears, hating, de∣spising, biting and devouring one another, who are esteemed the severe censurers of other mens sins and follies, sharp curbs to the chil∣dish, petulant and licentious humours of people. Ministers scufflings and contests with one another, is beyond any Cock-fighting or Bear-baiting to the vulgar envy, malice, profanenesse and petu∣lancy.

In the midst of all which sufferings, first from Divine Justice, (which calls upon every one to examine the plague of his own heart,) next from humane ingratitude and insolency, though every sober and prudent Minister cannot but see that precipice and gulph of irreligion, irreverence and contempt, to which the Reformed Religion and the whole office of the Ministry is now falling in England, through the endless capricios and extravagances chiefly of some Ministers; though most Ministers on all sides, that have any learning, worth or abilities for that office, do generally agree in the same Scriptures and

Sacraments, in the same Faith and Salvation, in the same God and Sa∣viour, in the same Graces and Vertues, in the same Doctrine for morals and Mysteries, in the same Precepts and Promises, in the same holy duties and blessed hopes; yet even these Ministers (which is a thou∣sand pities) are sharply, and for ought I can see (unless God work miracles upon some of their spirits and tempers) resolutely and eter∣nally divided by those wedges of differences, touching external Church-order and Discipline, the manner of worship, and power of managing of Church-government: so that the way of peace few have known; nor are they patient to learn, contrary to their pre∣sumptions. To recant their errours they are ashamed; remit their rigour they must not, lest they abate their parties and followers; exchange their animosities as men, for moderations becoming bre∣thren and Christians, they will not, lest their credit decay, and their factions abate, lest those shews and shadows of popular empire va∣nish, which they have seemed or fancied themselves to enjoy, upon these accounts of rare inventions, and new models of Refor∣mation, Ministry, &c. All which must by some men be kept up, though all things else do fall to the ground: though the Church of En∣gland lies languishing and sighing, weeping and bleeding; though the Reformed Religion is deformed, decaying, dying; though both piety and sincerity be much dispirited; though they cannot but see Ichabod wrote upon all their foreheads; though all Ministerial or∣der, office, employment and authority, as to mens inward respect and consciences, no less than in their outward reverence and obedi∣ence, is infinitely slackned, and in many places (as well as in many hearts) quite dissolved; though the Catholick Character, or Christs cognizance of Christians, which is sincere charity, be much defaced, & the Devils badges of factious confederacies be much worn; though the purity and simplicity, the warmth and worth, the words and works of true Religion be much out of fashion, giving way to fana∣tick follies and impudent vanities, daily vented in every place; though the beauty & serenity of the true Christian Religion, as of old, and of the well-reformed Religion, as it was of later years well esta∣blished in Engl. be much hidden, defaced, disguised by many hypocri∣tical masks & new dresses; though the palpable cunning of some men hath taught them to abuse this credulous age, by shaving off the hair & primitive ornament of this Church, which was very good & grace∣ful (having the honour of ancient, venerable and gray-headed Episco∣pacy upon it) that they might the better induce Christianity, which is now above 1500 years old, to put on and wear (a la mode) the new peruques either of young Presbytery, or younger Independency (ra∣ther than Religion should go quite bald, and be ridiculous by its de∣formity and confusion;) though the pristine polity, peace, purity, ma∣jesty, severity, sanctity and solemnity of Religion, as Christian and Reformed in England, be infinitely baffled and abased by the petu∣lancy of those that affect licentious liberties and unsaintly extrava∣gances; though all these evils (as Daemones meridiani) are pregnant,

and every day proclaimed by the loud Herauld of Experience, which themselves declaime against and deplore, as well as other men: Yet many Ministers (in other respects not to be despised, or much blamed) do still, as to the point of Church-order, discipline, govern∣ment and polity, (which is the outward centre of unity, and visible band of peace) passionately desire and solicitously endeavour, that those wild oats and tares, which some men have of late years sown, watered and cherished (while the Nation and Church were not aware, as being engaged in war and blood, during whose heats great wounds of Religion are little felt) might for ever grow up, spread and shed abroad (like thistle-down) yea and succeed to after-generations in this nation; that so England might be more famous for variety of parties and opinions in Religion, than either Poland is or Amsterdam.

How few nominal or real Ministers, that have been either Authors, or great sticklers and abettors, not of any modest, just and sober Reformations, but of needless, endless innovations, schisms, de∣formities and defections in the Church of England, can yet find in their hearts meekly to retreat by any humble, ingenuous and hap∣py wayes of Christian meekness and wisdom, to a sweet accord, from their first heady extravagances and unhappy transports? in which the heat and passion of mens spirits (as is usual in all quarrels) made, even at first, the differences, jealousies and offences far greater than the real injury or inconvenience indeed was: which is most clearly evident now, not onely by our comparing the former happy estate of this Church, and of the Reformed Religion here, besides those com∣forts which the generality of all good Ministers and sober Christians in former times enjoyed in England under Episcopacy; but fur∣ther, by our serious considering those fair offers, those great mode∣rations, those self-denials and Christian condescentions, with which all worthy and wise Bishops, with all Episcopal Ministers, were, and are, ready to gratifie the peace of this Church, and the desires of all good Christians, even of those who have been most their enemies and destroyers; whom they forgive the more readily, because they believe most of them, as the crucifiers of Christ, did it ignorantly; ignorant of the laws of this Nation, and of the good constitutions of this Church, ignorant of the customes, practise and judgement of all ancient Catholick Churches, ignorant of that equity and chari∣ty which they owed to others, ignorant of that honest policy and discretion which they owed to themselves and their order, lastly, ignorant of that pious, grateful and prudent regard they should have had of the honour, peace and prosperity of this Church, both at present and in after-ages.

But however the exorbitancies of some ignorant men at first might be so far venial, as they were led on by the pious and speci∣ous pretences of others, rather than their own principles; yet they are less excusable (now) since the sad events have so fully confuted all those prejudices and pretensions; since popular looseness, avarice

and madness, hath, as a rude broom, swept away all the fine-spun and speciously spread cobwebs of Reformation, either as to the state of this Church, or the Reformed Religion professed here in England, or as to the promised amendment of the Ministerial order and of∣fice, either for ability, duty, authority, or maintenance. Ministers first tearings and rendings of themselves asunder are not yet sewed together; yea Religion it self is faln to rags, and preachers are be∣come as so many pie-bald patches, of several colours and antick fi∣gures: which wretched division and fundamental deformity in Re∣ligion cannot but daily grow, as a Gangrene, to greater maladies, mischiefs and miseries, which will be bitterness in the later end.

For as no City, so no Church can prosper, that is divided against it self: neither grace nor peace can advance, where Preachers of Re∣ligion are mutual persecutors; where, while Ministers teach people to believe, to love and to live Christ crucified, they are daily cruci∣fying one another. It is a deplorable and desperate state of any Church, where (as in Babels building) the builders tongues, heads, hands and hearts are divided, yea the very builders are self-destroy∣ers, mutually ruining themselves under pretence of zeal to build, or repaire the Church of Christ: what one rears with the right hand, another pulls down with the left; when they frequently leave their trowels, and fall to their pick-axes and ponyards; when they fling lime and sand in one anothers eyes; when they build, or dawb rather, with untempered mortar; when every one is ambitious to be a Master-builder, a new modeller of Religion, of Churches, of Ministers and of Ministry, contrary to the wisdome and piety of such a Church and Nation as England was.

Leaving poor people (mean while) infinitely amazed, jealous, unsatisfied, perplexed, as to Religion. Some are sadly grieved, others are quite confounded: many are zealous for the newest fashi∣on, others are for the good old way, a third sort is glad of the oc∣casion to cast off all Religion, while they see those Ministers cut the Catholick cords of charity and unity in sunder, in order to bind Christians up to new parties and factions, or to private interests and opinions, which, like Sampsons withs, will not serve to bind the lusts or consciences of men to their good behaviour.

These, these are the sad effects which follow those deformities of Preachers turning Pioneers, of Ministers being underminers and demolishers of one another, and their Mother-Church; when those that should be Gods Ambassadours (forgetting the majesty of their mission, and sanctity of their errand) fall to railing and reproching, calumniating and declaiming against one another (like so many eager Baristers and mercenary Lawyers, who are resolved (being once fee'd) to defend their cause and their client, whatever the merits of them be, because they have once undertaken them) without any regard to that justice, honour, wisdome, gravity, charity, meekness, harmony, joynt counsel and ingenuous correspondency, which ought to be pre∣served in all fraternities and honest callings or mysteries: but chief∣ly

among the Ministers of Christs glorious Gospel; Preachers should be of the highest form of Christs Disciples, the most exem∣plary in all piety, meekness and prudence, in all gravity, equity and charity; for want of which, even as to matters of outward polity, order, civility and ministration, they are (and ever will be) the more blamable before God and man, by how much nearer they profess to come to one another in the harmonies of faith, and confessions of the same reformed and true doctrine, which would soon unite their hearts and studies, if they had (on all sides) less of easiness, creduli∣ty, popularity, peevishness, obstinacy, small ambitions and juveni∣lities. The removing of which distempers from all Ministers, new and old, and from my self as well as any other, is one of my chief de∣signs and endeavours to be carried on in the fourth and last Book of this discourse.

At present it sufficeth to have shewed (as an evil branch of abused Liberty in Religion) this to be none of the least causes or occasions of the Church of Englands distempers, decayes and miseries, that Mini∣sters are (after Mundane and machiavellian methods) so sharply di∣vided from, and eagerly opposite against one another; so hardly perswaded by any retreats and principles of piety, charity, pru∣dence, which honest policy, publick necessity, self-preservation, or care of future succession invite them to; which may make for an happy close and Christian accommodation.

Upon some Ministers pride and peevishness, not any one, nay not all these considerations together, can so far prevail (I fear) as to induce them to any terms or treaty of equable accord; but they still carry themselves as young men, high in their own conceits, coy and elate in their parties, opinions, presumptions, prejudices, ani∣mosities and disdains, especially against the former Ministry of En∣gland, which was not more Episcopal than Catholick, Primitive, Apo∣stolicall and truly Christian. Few novell Ministers ever lay their hand on their heart, and ask, what evil have I acted, occasioned, or not hindred to this Church of England?

Notes

• Unavoidable contentions a∣mong Ministers of different or∣dinations.
• 1 Kings 8.38.
• Mar. 3.24.